


mountains and valleys (and all that will come in between)

by alljustrunaways



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Missing Scenes, also the amy/teddy is very minor and only in the first chapter, filling the gaps between seasons, the whole squad is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-13 02:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17479514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alljustrunaways/pseuds/alljustrunaways
Summary: Jake, Amy, and four distinct yet painfully similar times the universe pulled them apart and pushed them back together.





	1. part one: undercover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends!! i felt inclined to write some more angst, and decided to make it canon-compliant since dan goor has tortured these poor kids enough without me making stuff up. here is the first instalment of four - i hope you all enjoy it :)

When Jake leaves Amy standing outside the precinct, her mouth slightly agape and the air sucked out of her lungs, she doesn’t know when she’s going to see him again.

 

In a much darker realm of possibility that she doesn’t dare to explore for too long, she doesn’t know _if_ she’s going to see him again.

 

She recalls in vivid horror the time that her old precinct, back when she was a beat cop, received word that one of their detectives was tortured and killed on an undercover operation scarily similar to the one Jake is embarking on. She hopes and prays that the detective the NYPD lost that day five years ago didn’t leave some unlucky man or woman with a confession of love and longing that they would never get the chance to act on.

 

She stands in place, her feet incapable of movement, for an indefinite amount of time. She isn’t sure if it’s five minutes or an hour that pass by - or, if she’s lucky, the entirety of the three to five months that the FBI estimates Jake’s mission to take - but eventually the wind picks up and a shiver runs up her spine. She feels her phone buzz in her pocket and wonders how long it’s been doing that, how long she’s been completely unaware her surroundings.

 

**_Teddy Wells_ **

_Hi, Amy. Are you still coming over? It’s unlike you to be late._

**_Teddy Wells_ **

_(2) Missed Calls_

 

There are a million things she wants to do right now: run after Jake (though he’s long gone), scream, throw something breakable, drink an entire bottle of vodka, flee the country. Spending time with Teddy is low on the list. She isn’t obligated to - they haven’t been dating for that long and it’s perfectly okay for her to choose a night in without giving him a full explanation - but blowing off her boyfriend would mean that something has changed.

 

She can’t admit that she feels as though her entire world has been shifted on its axis. Not to herself. _Definitely_ not to the man she is dating. And not to Jake, either, because he never gave her the damn chance to.

 

He disappeared like a wildfire that was suddenly extinguished, and she’s left to deal with the rubble.

 

 

* * *

 

 

According to the alarm clock next to her bed, which she must arch her body over Teddy’s sleeping form to read properly, it’s nearly three in the morning.

 

Precisely five hours after the time that Teddy insists they go to bed following their evening crossword, and she’s gotten - in total - about _one_ hour of sleep.

 

It’s not Amy’s fault. She knows she has to be up in three hours for work and it’s going to be a busy day working as a secondary on Rosa’s homicide case. She knows she’s barely slept all week and her body is hating her for it.

 

She blames a part of her brain that she knows from AP bio but is too damn tired to recall for the images that appear every time she closes her eyes.

 

_Jake, laughing in the passenger seat of her squad car about the imaginary backstory he’s invented for one of his undercover personas._

 

_Jake, biting his lip and absentmindedly running his hand through messy hair as he stares pensively at a case file, the gears in his mind turning wildly._

 

_Jake, standing in front of her eight days ago and saying “I kinda wish something could happen between us...romantic-stylez”._

 

The ethical complications of thinking such thoughts about another man while in bed next to her sleeping boyfriend clog her mind, making it even harder to rest.

 

She trudges to the kitchen, surrendering to her losing battle with sleep. Her socked feet tip-toe on the hardwood floor to avoid any creaking sounds that may wake Teddy.

 

It isn’t until she raises a glass of water to her lips that she notices her hands are shaking. Her entire body is shaking, actually, which is one of the first indicators of an oncoming panic attack. She tries to breathe slowly, close her eyes and count to ten, like she’s been instructed to. It works some of the time.

 

“C’mon, Amy,” she mumbles to herself, shutting her eyes even tighter as she feels tears threaten to escape. “Get it together.”

 

_I know you’re with Teddy, and I know it’s going really well._

 

She shakes her head, slamming her glass down on the counter a bit too loudly. “Stop thinking about it,” she says aloud, willing Jake’s voice in her head to just disappear.

 

_I don't know what's gonna happen on this assignment, and if something bad goes down, I think I'd be pissed at myself if I didn't say this._

 

Her fingernails dig into her palms as she tries to ground herself to reality. She’s worried that these thoughts and emotions are going to eat her alive.

 

“Fuck,” she blurts out, her hand coming to cover her mouth the moment she blurts out the word. The Santiagos conditioned their children not to curse at a young age through loss of before-bed reading time, and it’s stuck with her through to adulthood. She rarely swears, and only does so in situations that demand such a word to be spoken. But, damn, if this doesn’t fit the bill, what does?

 

_I kinda wish something could happen, between us, romantic styles._

 

In the darkness of her kitchen, with not a soul there to hear her, she whispers:

 

“So do I.”

 

 

* * *

 

It takes another five days for Amy to confide in someone. She’s not thinking about Jake - one of the rare moments of the past two weeks that her thoughts manage to travel elsewhere - as she sits on Teddy’s living room sofa, reading one of her favourite crime novels while he flips through the channels.

 

“Do you want to watch this one?”

 

She’s too engrossed in her novel, which is steadily climbing towards the big climax she’s read a dozen times but never tires of, to look up from its pages.

 

“Whatever you want, I’m not really watching,” she mumbles, hastily turning the page.

 

Teddy murmurs words of agreement and selects whatever title he was pondering, and it takes about twenty seconds for Amy to recognize the dialogue.

 

_“You throw quite a party. I didn’t realize they celebrated Christmas in Japan.”_

 

Before she looks up at the screen, she’s briefly transported to several distinct memories of the past few years: Jake’s couch four months ago, a half-eaten pizza and two cans of orange soda in front of them, watching this very movie; a year before that, viewing it (along with the sequel) at Charles’ place during Jake’s surprise birthday party; her first year at the Nine-Nine, sitting in the break room with a shitty laptop on the table playing the film while Captain McGintley took his afternoon nap, despite Amy’s better judgement.

 

“Everything okay?”

 

Amy glances down at the book, which she unknowingly dropped in her lap as her eyes fixed on Bruce Willis shooting a gun on Teddy’s television. She realizes with a sharp pain in her chest that this is the first time in years that she’s watched this movie without Jake present.

 

“Do you not like _Die Hard_? We can watch something else-“

 

“No,” she interrupts, shaking her head. “I mean, no, I _don’t_ like _Die Hard_ , but...that’s not what’s bothering me.”

 

Teddy furrows his eyebrows and turns off the television, twisting his body to face her and, perhaps, to figure out what she’s thinking.

 

“There’s a reason I’ve been kind of weird the past couple of weeks.”

 

He prompts her to continue with a slow nod. It certainly has not gone unnoticed the way she’s flinched away from so many of his touches, declined his advances in the bedroom every evening, stared into space for most of their dinners together.

 

“You know how Peralta got fired?”

 

Teddy nods again, somewhat more apprehensively. Jake’s been a source of tension for them before, from their first date after Tactical Village Day when Teddy questioned if they had some sort of romantic history and Amy rambled incessantly about how he’s her _coworker_ and she would _never_ date him rather than giving a simple and far less suspicious “no.”

 

“You can’t tell anyone this, but he had to get fired so he could go on an undercover mission with the FBI. And before he left, he, um...” She swallows the lump in her throat, which now feels incredibly dry. “He told me he had feelings for me.”

 

Teddy’s eyes widen, and he discards the blanket previously draped over his lap.

 

“Well, you told him it’s never gonna happen, right?” he asks quickly, anger building in his voice.

 

“I didn’t really get the chance, he kinda just dropped the bomb and walked away and we can’t have any contact-“

 

“Do _you_ have feelings for him?”

 

The right answer to that question isn’t immediately evident to Amy - a “no” would be a blatant lie, but “yes” would immediately terminate a relationship that she isn’t sure she’s ready to see the end of. Teddy is the perfect man on paper, the kind of man that her father would probably approve of upon their first introduction. He’s a good cop, just like Jake, but his approach to detective work is methodical and precise and completely unlike the frantic ( _brilliant)_ energy of Jake solving a case nobody else, even Amy herself, could solve. She feels comfortable with him, she feels safe, but she’s wondered from time to time if it’s a little _too_ safe. It’s only logical - there’s no way he can break her heart if he never really has it in the first place.

 

Regardless of her intentions, she gathers from Teddy’s disappointed glare that the right answer is probably not complete silence.

 

“I think I-I’m confused.”

 

Teddy pauses, his ears reddening like he’s gearing up for an argument, but instead lets out a heavy sigh and nods his head. “Okay. I guess you should probably-“

 

“Go home and take some time to think,” Amy finishes.

 

“I was going to say we should talk about this, but…if that’s what you need.”

 

Amy looks at him apologetically and presses a quick peck to his cheek before standing to gather her things.

 

“I’ll call you on the weekend,” she calls out to him before shutting his front door behind her, scurrying downstairs and to the nearest bodega to buy a pack of cigarettes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next three months bring longer days and warmer weather to New York. Summer means the precinct is at a more acceptable temperature for Amy’s eternally-cold skin, it means the majority of her colleagues are cashing in their time off and she has more casework to keep herself busy, and this year it means long nights hiding at work to avoid her boyfriend who is still, somehow, her boyfriend despite her weeks of confusion and claiming she felt they were “out of sync.”

 

Really, the confusion is far from resolved. It definitely won’t be until Jake is back and she can at least _speak_ to him about everything, but it’s become increasingly unclear when that will be as the three-month park passes and they still have little to no information on the status of his case.

 

It’s a particularly hot June afternoon, shortly before the end of her shift and the beginning of the weekend. She’s heading to New Jersey tomorrow morning (it’s no coincidence that she’s visiting her parents so much more frequently these past few months - Jersey is a Teddy-free zone, and therefore a hard-to-answer-question-free zone) and wrapping up the last of a string of open-and-shut B&Es.

 

Her head jolts up from her desk when she hears the sound of the captain exiting his office, the familiar clacking of his shoes on the tile floor a sound that she’s taught herself to respond to with alertness.

 

“Jeffords, Santiago, Boyle and Diaz, can I see you all for a moment?”

 

She’s up at her feet in an instant, the first to enter the captain’s office as the others follow behind her. Rosa’s the last to walk in, and Holt closes the door immediately behind her.

 

“What’s going on, sir?” Terry asks, crossing his arms.

 

“A friend of mine at the FBI has given me some insight into Peralta’s case that I felt I should share with all of you,” Holt explains, moving to stand behind his desk.

 

She can’t gage from his expression whether the news is that he’s coming home or that he’s dead or something else entirely, but her knees go weak nonetheless and she grabs onto the back of a chair as subtilely as possible.

 

“What is it?” Charles asks quickly with wide eyes. “Is Jake okay?”

 

“He’s alive,” Holt says quickly, and Amy’s world stops spinning long enough that she’s able to nod in understanding and stand a little straighter. “The case is going well, and there is a chance that they’re getting close to being able to set up a sting. Unfortunately, the closer that Peralta gets to the Ianucci family, the more their enemies become his. He hasn’t sustained any major injuries, but the danger of the case has grown exponentially…”

 

Amy watches Holt’s lips move for another minute or two, but the rest of the words fade out into a dull humming sound in her ears. She wants to collapse to the floor or run to the bathroom and throw up, but her feet are glued to the floor.

 

“Santiago, are you alright?”

 

It’s not the first time the voice of her commanding officer is the only thing to snap her out of a heavy trance. She looks up at Holt and realizes that he’s done his spiel and his eyes, along with everyone else in the room’s, are fixed on her.

 

“I’m fine, sir,” she says, supporting her statement with a contender for the most obviously fake smile in history. “I’m sorry, will you excuse me? I think I’m getting a-a call-“

 

With a small nod of approval from Captain Holt, she’s pushing past Rosa towards the exit and running to the roof. She needs air. She needs nicotine. She needs, and this one is by far the most pressing, to see Jake Peralta healthy and alive.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A dark corner at Shaw’s and several bottles of beer, Amy quickly realizes, is the best and only available antidote for the day she’s had. No Teddy, no smalltalk with coworkers, nothing but the numbing effect of the alcohol on her tired brain.

 

She hasn’t spent much time here over the past few months. It turns out there are a lot of places that feel just a little bit wrong without Jake around. Some are unavoidable - work, for instance, and the little deli across the street that they both love. Others, she avoids at all cost - the bar, his neighbourhood, that one apartment building on Barton Street where they conducted a stakeout many months ago on the worst (yet somehow, _best_ ) date of her life.

 

“What’s up with you?”

 

She looks up from anxiously picking at the wrapper of her bottle at her fellow detective and - sometimes, Amy thinks - friend.

 

“Oh, hey Rosa,” Amy says quickly, already raising her guard. “Um, nothing’s up with me. What’s up with _you_?”

 

She sighs as Rosa gives her the look that she knows by now to mean that she is _not_ having any of her bullshit and subsequently slides into the seat across from her.

 

“Fine,” Amy mumbles after a few moments of Rosa’s hard stare. She’s a little drunk and feeling a _lot_ of emotions, so she settles on the one that’s the easiest to express right now - anger. “I’m mad at him.”

 

Rosa narrows her eyes. “Teddy?”

 

Amy shakes her head incredulously. She supposes it’s the natural assumption, him being her _boyfriend_ and all, but she’s never mad at Teddy. He doesn’t do anything wrong. Even if he did, she doubts he could ever make her feel as mad as she does right now.

 

“Peralta,” Amy clarifies, not helping the look of confusion on Rosa’s face. “He’s…the worst. I’m _pissed_ at him.”

 

“For what? He’s been gone for months.”

 

Amy laughs, taking a long swig of her beer until its contents are completely drained. She imagines she looks like a crazy person as she slams the bottle on the table and continues laughing.

 

“That’s the _problem,_ Diaz. He left for months, right after he-” She hiccups from the recent chugging of her beverage. “He told me he _likes_ me. Like, _likes me_ likes me. For realz, romantic-stylez, likes me. Jake _Peralta.”_

 

Rosa eyebrows raise a little bit, but there is no gasp of shock that follows Amy’s confession. After a moment, she simply nods.

 

“Hold up,” Amy mumbles, her hands gripping the table as she begins to feel slightly dizzy. “Did you know? Did he tell you?”

 

“No, Jake and I don’t talk about that crap,” Rosa asserts quickly. “But…I suspected it for a while. I think everyone kinda did.”

 

Amy lets out a sigh of exasperation, suddenly feeling like the worst detective on Earth. Has he really liked her for a _while?_ Potentially before she embarked on her current relationship, satisfactory yet completely dull in comparison to the excitement of bickering with Jake while on a case?

 

“He just left and now he could get hurt or-or _die_ and he didn’t even give me the chance to respond,” she whines, burying her face in her hands as her hair falls like a curtain around her head. “What a complete ass.”

 

“So you like him back, huh?”

 

Amy hurriedly brushes the hair out of her face to look the other woman in the eye.

 

“I never said that,” she snaps, once again reverting to the defensive. “I-he’s _Jake_ , I wouldn’t-I mean, _maybe_ , but I’m still with Teddy and I’m just confused, okay?”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I just don’t want him to die. That doesn’t mean I like him.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“It would be nice to get the chance to figure it out, though. With him here.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And…I don’t want to lose him.”

 

Rosa’s eyes soften a little this time, though her tone remains steady: “You won’t.”

 

Amy holds her coworker’s - no, they’re definitely friends - gaze, nodding slowly. Rosa’s right about pretty much everything. She hopes this is no exception.

 

“I need another drink.”

 

“I don’t think so, Santiago,” Rosa stands and blocks her path back to the bar. “C’mon, I’ll take you home. I haven’t had anything to drink yet.”

 

A few minutes later, in the passenger seat of Rosa’s car, Amy opens her eyes for the first time since they left the Shaw’s parking lot and turns her head to face Rosa as she focuses on driving.

 

“Do you think me and Jake - uh, romantic-stylez - would be bad idea?”

 

Rosa pauses and glances over briefly. “I don’t think you’re gonna remember this tomorrow.”

 

Amy just curls in on herself and gives into her drunken desire to zone out and stare out the window at the passing city lights.

 

“But no,” Rosa mutters faintly just before Amy passes out. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

 

Amy doesn’t get much warning that he’s coming back. There’s been whispers among their detective squad, but no real confirmation that this would be unlike the many other times they were _close_ to a sting but couldn’t quite pull it off.

 

She has the weekend off, and Sunday evening she gets a text from Rosa:

 

_Jake’s back. They got most of the Ianuccis yesterday - busted at a family wedding. He’ll be at work tomorrow._

 

She’s beyond grateful for the heads up, because she has at least twelve hours to compose herself before she’s face-to-face with him for the first time in six months..

 

On one hand, she’s entirely unprepared to see him. On the other, she’s tempted to drive to his apartment right now and kiss him harder than she’s ever kissed anyone.

 

The more rational part of Amy, the part that is still in a relationship with a reasonable man for a woman approaching her thirties to be dating, wins this one.

 

She barely sleeps the night before he returns, her mind drafting a dozen options for what she may say to him when they reunite. Some are more dramatic or cliche than others, many would morally require her to break up with Teddy first. All of them end with some acknowledgement of her feelings, but none end up leaving her mouth when the time comes.

 

They’re in the evidence lockup, alone in a room together for the first time in _so_ long - it felt like an eternity for her, at least - and she just can’t say it. Not like this, not now, not _yet_.

 

“I’m still with Teddy. Romantic-stylez.”

 

The hurt, slightly surprised look on Jake’s face - which she has been subconsciously re-memorizing since the moment he stepped off the elevator - makes her regret the choice instantly, but the real sweeping blow to her heart comes when he takes back his confession a moment later.

 

Later that day - somewhere between the clinking of glasses, Jake respectfully informing her that he does indeed still have feelings for her but understands that she’s still with Teddy, and a quiet walk alone to the subway after she decides she needs some air - Amy back to square one in terms of the confusion as to where her heart lies.

 

She arrives at Teddy’s at their agreed upon time and lets herself in, taking her boots off and placing them in the orderly line of his shoes on the rack by the door.

 

“In the kitchen, Amy!”

 

The sight before her in his large, well-lit kitchen with marble countertops is nothing new. She can estimate immediately that he’s about halfway through his Pilsner-brewing process, which he’s recently become quite obsessed with. Simply through frequent observation, she’s pretty sure _she_ could make Pilsners in her sleep at this point.

 

“How was work today?” Teddy asks without looking up from the stove. “I heard Peralta’s back from his big, fancy FBI operation.”

 

The ignores the condescending tone and obvious jealousy, taking a seat at one of the stools and dropping her purse.

 

“It was fine.”

 

“Did you finally tell him nothing’s gonna happen between you two?”

 

Amy nods slowly, staring at her hands in her lap, and then realizes he still isn’t facing her. “Yeah. I told him.”

 

Teddy adjusts the burner on the stove and turns to her with a wide smile that fades the moment they make eye contact.

 

“What’s wrong?” he demands, brows furrowed. “Did he give you a hard time? If he’s being a jerk-“

 

“No.” God, she _wishes_ he was a jerk. It would be so, so much easier if he was an entitled asshole. “No, he was perfectly respectful. I’m not upset, just-”

 

“Confused?”

 

Teddy repeats her choice of words from months ago - a word that is still haunting her - and she wants so badly to lie and shake her head and pretend that everything is fine and there’s nothing to be worried about. She can’t do that in good conscience, but she figures she _can_ keep dating Teddy and see where that relationship takes her as long as she’s at least relatively honest with him.

 

“Yeah,” she confirms. “So, what flavour is this batch?”

 

She can see it in his eyes that Teddy isn’t happy with her answer, but at least she knows that she told him (part of) the truth as she sits back and listens to him talk about yeast and fermentation for the next forty minutes.

 

What she doesn’t admit to him, nor to herself quite yet, is that their relationship has been a ticking time bomb from the moment Jake flagged her down outside the precinct six months ago. Whether she likes it or not, it’s only a matter of time before it explodes and destroys everything in its reach.

 

Destruction isn’t always the worst thing, though. Not when it’s making room for something new and, if she’s lucky, something beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me on tumblr @ peraltasames  
> comments/kudos are always appreciated :)


	2. part two: florida

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i wrote this chapter over the course of one day. leave it to me to get a sudden burst of motivation to write only when i have an abundance of school work i should be doing!
> 
> anyways, this one is in jake's pov, the next one will be back to amy's.
> 
> (also, full disclosure - this is more reunion and feelings about separation here than actual separation bc there's only so much of jake being depressed i can handle lmao)

Jake doesn’t speak until somewhere around the border of Virginia and North Carolina.

 

He listens to Marshal Haas, located in the passenger seat, as she briefs them on their new identities. He glances over at Captain Holt, who is listening much more intently than himself and twisting his wedding ring around his finger, likely trying to memorize how it feels before he’s forced to part with it. He looks out the window at the many streets, houses and towns that they pass, dimly lit by the moon and streetlights. He thinks about Amy.

 

It isn’t until Holt grabs his shoulder and informs him that the marshal just asked if he has any questions that he finally opens his mouth to talk, his voice coming out a little hoarse from lack of recent use.

 

“How long did you say it’s gonna take to catch Figgis?”

 

“It’s impossible to say, but we’re predicting somewhere between four months and a year,” Haas says with the same no-nonsense, clear tone that she’s been using since picking Holt and Jake up at the precinct hours ago after a much too short goodbye with the squad.

 

It seems so far away already. It feels like it’s been years, not hours, since he wrapped Amy in a hug in the corner of the briefing room - all the privacy that they were allotted - and kissed her hair repeatedly while she tried to stifle her panicked cries.

 

“It’s crucial that you follow every one of these rules exactly as I instruct you to,” the marshal continues, “or he’ll find you before we find him.”

 

“I know.”

 

She’s only stated this a hundred times since they left New York - _follow the rules, follow the rules, follow the rules_. He understands that she’s doing her job and trying to keep him alive and he should really be grateful, but he does not think that she understands the complete and utter torture of being apart from Amy Santiago.

 

He’s done it for the past three weeks, a much shorter length of time than the one they’re facing now and with frequent texts and phone calls and reassurance that she was okay. Still, they were by far the worst three weeks Jake experienced since they started dating last summer.

 

To make matters so much worse, they had just agreed to move in together. They were just about to take the next step in their relationship, a step that he hoped would be the first of several ensuing advancements towards a lifetime together - because, god, there is _no way_ he’s ever going to find anything better than this. She is absolutely, undeniably, the best thing that has ever and will ever happened to him.

 

And now that’s on hold - maybe for four months, maybe for a year, _any_ amount of time being too long for him.

 

Nobody else sees it, but as he turns his head to resume staring out the window, his tired eyes might just shed a tear or two.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The first few months, he doesn’t cope well.

 

The first month consists of cases of cheap beer from the K-Mart around the corner, watching movies he doesn’t like in front of a crappy TV with all the lights turned off and sleeping until two in the afternoon.

 

The second month is still getting used to calling Holt “Greg” (which feels wrong for a multitude of reasons), eating burritos in the hot tub and rejecting _Greg’s_ pleas that Jake - _Larry -_ take better care of himself.

 

The third month is his birthday passing and Holt giving him a small nod and smile when they walk outside to retrieve the papers in the morning, not being able to say anything aloud because Larry’s birthday is in October.

 

The third day of the fourth month, Holt comes over for dinner. He’ll tell the neighbourhood walking group the next day that Larry simply cooked too many burgers and invited his closest neighbour in proximity over for a casual meal to eliminate food waste.

 

They play loud music - Larry’s favourite band is Nickelback, to Jake’s horror - to allow them to talk somewhat more freely than they do outside while in the confines of the kitchen, though Holt still insists on using their fake personas to help them “stay in character.”

 

“How are you doing?” Holt asks, taking a sip of his soda. Greg drinks soda. Holt does not.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“I can tell that something’s bothering you, Larry,” he insists, looking Jake in the eye. “Is it…girl trouble?”

 

Jake deciphers his code immediately, understanding what he’s really trying to ask is _do you miss Amy?_

 

He nods. “Yeah. Girl trouble.”

 

There’s a pause, and he can feel Holt’s eyes on him, analyzing his pained expression.

 

“Perhaps I can offer some advice,” Holt says with a casual wave of his hand. “One heterosexual man to another.”

 

Jake turns up the dial on the speaker to drown out his words and speaks softly, barely loud enough for Holt to hear him.

 

“I miss her so much,” he admits. “And I can’t stand not being able to talk to her or the Nine-Nine or my mom and not - not know if she’s okay-“

 

He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until Holt pulls him into a firm hug, steadying him, and his laboured breathing slows marginally.

 

“She’s okay,” Holt murmurs. “She’ll be okay as long as you stay alive long enough to come home to her.”

 

They stay like that for a few moments until Holt releases him, finishes his beverage and excuses himself for the night.

 

Before he retires to his own bungalow next door, Holt pats him on the shoulder in the doorway and offers his best attempt at a reassuring smile.

 

“Thank you for dinner, Larry,” he says. “And if it’s any consolation, I also miss my…wife.”

 

It does help, barely, to know that they’re in this horrible situation together. That every night Jake lies awake drinking and fiddling with the thermostat - the house is always way too hot - and thinking about his girlfriend, Captain Holt is a few dozen yards away thinking of his _husband_.

 

Mostly, this realization fuels his burning desire to get the two of them home - to Brooklyn, to the precinct, to the people waiting for them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Halfway through month five, he decides to stop waiting for the FBI to figure it out.

 

He knows they’re professionals and everything, but he’s a damn good detective and he thinks that what he lacks in resources, he may be able to make up for in motivation.

 

(His motivation, to be precise, is a picture of Amy that he printed at Staples on the wall of a storage unit he rents.)

 

He doesn’t tell Holt about it - he _knows_ he won’t approve and he’s learned by now that it’s easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. He’s pretty sure the captain will forgive him with ease once Figgis is behind bars.

 

The late nights and early mornings spent drinking diluted iced coffee from 7-Eleven and combing through files on the internet are difficult, yet so, _so_ much better than doing nothing. He feels like a cop again, he feels like _Jake_ again, and he’s getting a little bit closer to all of that legally being true every single day.

 

There’s one night, or maybe two, where he hits a dead end and wants to give up, but he doesn’t.

 

There’s too much at stake.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jimmy Figgis finds them before they find him.

 

It’s a plan of their own invention, a plan that they only have hours to assemble, and a plan that there is no reason they shouldn’t be able to execute perfectly.

 

It’s also, unfortunately, a plan that doesn’t account for Coral Palms PD showing up and foiling their operation.

 

Jake doesn’t realize how royally screwed he is until he feels Figgis’ gun pressed to his head and - at the exact same time - sees Amy.

 

He sees her in the literal sense that she’s standing right in front of him, gun drawn, her composure steady despite the evident fear in her eyes. For the fourth or fifth time today (and therefore the fourth or fifth time in six months) she is in front of him, in the flesh, and he’s still trying to process that she’s really here in Florida and not just a hallucination.

 

But, he also sees her in a different way, a way that only a man with a gun pressed to his temple could.

 

He sees her kissing him victoriously, wrapping her arms around his neck for the first time in half a year; her dark hair hanging down and the silhouette of her body over his as they remember how to move as one; her head against his chest while she drifts off into a peaceful sleep.

 

He sees them walking up the stairs to her apartment and collapsing on the couch in front of the TV; waking up at eight o’clock in the evening and ordering so much Chinese food that he feels a little sick afterwards; staying up until the early hours of the morning talking and catching up on every little detail of their lives.

 

He sees her across the desk at work, eyes glued to the computer screen, perfectly unaware of the fact that he’s gazing at her like she’s the sun, the stars, the entire damn universe.

 

He sees her in a white dress, walking down the aisle towards him while their friends and family watch with wide smiles; her with a small bump under her shirt that isn’t part of an undercover disguise to infiltrate a prison; her with streaks of grey in her hair that match his.

 

He sees an entire future that could slip away if Figgis pulls the trigger.

 

So he nods at her, and hopes that she understands that it means he wants her to do whatever she has to do to ensure that they get that future.

 

The next few moments are a blur - the sound of a gunshot, unspeakable pain in his right leg, Amy running after Figgis, sirens in the distance. The minutes that follow are similarly hectic, between watching his worst enemy get cuffed and shoved into the back of a squad car and trying not to curse in pain as first responders treat his bullet wound.

 

Things don’t slow down at all, really, until Amy kisses him and says she loves him, effectively drowning out all of their surroundings.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Two hours, one brief surgery, dozens of stitches, a lot of drugs and too many cups of bad hospital coffee to count later, the Nine-Nine is once again reunited.

 

They’re all gathered around Jake’s hospital room, and his eyes scan the room like he’s doing a mental roll call:

 

Peralta, sitting up against the headboard, one hand holding a cup of blue Jell-O and the other on Amy’s back;

 

Santiago, curled into his side, resting her head on his shoulder and pressing occasional kisses to his jaw and cheek;

 

Diaz, leaning up against the wall with a barely-restrained smile and crossed arms;

 

Boyle, hovering near Jake and searching for the best photos of his new son Nikolaj on his phone, shoving the screen in Jake’s face every time he finds a good one;

 

Jeffords, occupying one of the chairs next to his bed, eating a ham sandwich;

 

Holt, in the chair next to Terry with an ice pack on his injured limb and a new record for the biggest smile Jake’s ever seen on his face after a lengthy phone call with Kevin;

 

Hitchcock and Scully - well, they _were_ there, but they left in search of the vending machines about fifteen minutes ago and have yet to return;

 

Finally, Gina, sitting at the foot of the bed and loudly catching him up on the details of her personal life, which Jake tries to follow.

 

“Wait, so Natasha said she would bring you to the Rihanna concert-”

 

“She _promised_.”

 

“But instead she took her new boyfriend Brad.”

 

“It’s _Ben_ , Jake,” Gina sighs, shaking her head. “God, keep up, man.”

 

“Sorry,” Jake says with a small yawn, “it’s been a long day.”

 

It’s been a long six months, really, but the past few days on the run with Holt and the hours that followed of trying to catch Figgis once and for all haven’t been particularly restful. He’s also still a little lethargic from the anesthesia he was under while a surgeon quickly repaired his leg, and he’s only stayed awake this long because he missed this - all of them together, talking and bickering and laughing - so much.

 

“We should let Jake and Amy get some rest,” Terry suggests, getting to his feet and tossing the wrapper from his second sandwich of the hour (“ _post-adrenaline Terry is a hungry Terry!_ ”) into the trash can.

 

Amy nods gratefully in Terry’s direction before returning her head to Jake’s shoulder. There are some whines of protest - they all come from Charles - but eventually all members of the squad bid the couple goodnight and filter out of the small room.

 

It’s finally just the two of them, in complete and total silence.

 

He puts down the Jell-O cup and shifts his body down on the bed to a much more reclined and comfortable position, pulling her along with him.

 

“How are you feeling?” she asks, rubbing his chest lightly with the palm of her hand.

 

“Uh, a _mazing_ ,” he says with complete seriousness. “I’m in bed, on drugs, with the most beautiful girl in the world.”

 

He looks down just in time to see her cheeks begin to redden before she tucks her head into his neck to hide her face and reconnect her lips with his warm skin.

 

“I missed you so much,” she says, and her voice trembles, her composure wavering now that they’re alone.

 

“I know, babe,” he whispers, running a hand through her hair, “I missed you too.”

 

Jake tilts her chin up to kiss her - he hasn’t had a free moment to kiss her since the ambulance - and her lips respond impatiently. She deepens the kiss right away, and her hand swiftly moves from his chest to the back of his head, pulling him closer and stroking his hair simultaneously.

 

“Love you,” he mumbles against her lips. She only sighs - a high-pitched, dreamy sigh - in response before sliding her tongue back into his mouth and relaxing all of her weight onto his body.

 

“Can you _believe_ not one vending machine in this entire hospital has Cheetos?”

 

Amy jerks away from him, her teeth catching on his lip and making him wince slightly, as Hitchcock and Scully come barging in with arms full of junk food.

 

“Where did everyone else go?” Scully asks cluelessly, munching on a bag of beef jerky.

 

Amy sighs with exasperation, and Jake would be a little more mad about the whole situation if she wasn’t so darn cute when she’s annoyed.

 

“They’re trying to _boink_ , Scully,” Hitchcock chimes in with a smirk.

 

“I - we are not _boinking_ in a hospital!” Amy exclaims. “I was just kissing my boyfriend who I haven’t seen in six freaking-“

 

“Oo-kay, Ames,” Jake says slowly in an attempt to calm her down, then turning his head to the two men in the doorway. “You two. Out. Now.”

 

They respond to Jake’s stern expression by hastily walking back out into the hallway and shutting the door behind them.

 

“Where were we?” Jake raises his eyebrows suggestively.

 

“Jake,” she narrows her eyes. “ _You_ know we’re not boinking in the hospital, right?”

 

“I mean…one quick boink wouldn’t hurt-and it’s been six months, Ames, you _know_ it’s gonna be quick-“

 

“As two adults who have had sex with each other many times, we should really stop using the word ‘boink’.”

 

“Fair point,” Jake concedes, patting her arm. “So should we…um, _make love_ -“

 

“Oh my god, Jake, _no_.”

 

He frowns and settles back into the soft pillows, huffing dramatically.

 

“Your doctor said in a few days we’ll be able to engage in ‘light to moderate sexual activity’,” she states, sliding her arm around his torso. “But for now, you need to sleep.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Burying his face in her hair and hugging her closer to himself with both arms, he finds it remarkably easy to fall into a deep, serene sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Jake is discharged from the hospital at eight the next morning, and by nine-thirty they’re boarding the first plane back to New York. He doesn’t bother to get any of Larry’s belongings from the house - he really never wants to go back there again, nor does he want to return to Coral Palms or Florida in general. He’s much more concerned with getting back to _Jake’s_ stuff - leather jackets and hoodies and his DVD collection and mixtapes full of Taylor Swift songs.

 

He sleeps through the flight, because seven hours really wasn’t enough to make up for all the sleep he lost, and wakes up to Amy kissing his forehead and a view of the Manhattan skyline. It’s _perfect_.

 

He figured they would go to her apartment - he hasn’t asked, but he assumes his is no longer _his_ after six months away - but, once she hauls their bags into a taxi, helps him into the car with his crutches and slides in beside him, she gives the driver his address.

 

“Your mom paid your rent while you were gone,” Amy explains, reaching for his hand. She’s kept some form of physical contact with him since he woke up this morning. “I know we said we would move in together, but I thought you should adjust to being back before we worry about that.”

 

“Thanks, babe.” He squeezes her fingers and thinks about how incredibly lucky he is. “Is my mom-“

 

“She’s already there, and no, your dad isn’t coming. Karen and I agreed you wouldn’t want to see him quite yet.”

 

Jake nods and squeezes her hand twice more, interlocking their fingers.

 

When they pull up outside his apartment building, he takes a moment to breathe in the somewhat gross (Florida stunk too, but way worse) but gloriously familiar smell of his neighbourhood. It’s a hot day, but still cool enough for the airport sweatpants and t-shirt (they both read _I Love Florida_ , which he absolutely does not) that he’s wearing. He’s had enough of shorts and tank tops for a long, long time.

 

His mom pulls him into a bone-crushing hug the moment they open the front door, making him drop his crutches, which Amy retrieves as she drags the bags past the threshold and begins organizing his stuff.

 

“Oh, it is so good to have you home, honey,” Karen says loudly, affectionately, as she continues to squeeze her son.

 

Jake looks over her shoulder at Amy as she moves through his studio apartment, which is decidedly much cleaner than he left it. It’s completely spotless, actually, except for a couple of stray hoodies of his - one on the couch, one on a chair in the kitchen. He wonders how much time she spent here - honestly, if he had the option to wallow in an entire room full of Amy’s belongings and clothes and things that smelled and felt and reminded him of her, he would’ve taken it every chance he got.

 

“Good to be home, Mom.”

 

As soon as his mother releases him and helps him hobble to the couch, Amy strides over to give Karen a quick hug and Jake a quick kiss before heading to the pharmacy to pick up his pain meds and the pizza place around the corner to pick up an extra-large meat supreme and a _salad,_ because he “really needs to start thinking about his health.”

 

Man, it is _so_ good to be home.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In bed that night, after Karen is gone and Charles comes over to check on Jake again and they eat a _lot_ of pizza, they finally catch up.

 

Jake tells her about everything - the WITSEC process, the hot tub burritos, his job at the ATV dealership - and, in turn, Amy fills him on everything he missed.

 

She talks about work, sparing no details from some of her juicier cases, and he listens with eager anticipation and tries to guess how she solved them before she finishes the story.

 

She tells him about how she got a lot closer with his mom and went over there for dinner a few times to check in on her, which Jake appreciates immensely.

 

While he holds her and strokes her hair gently, she talks about the nights she spent at Rosa’s watching Nancy Meyers films, eating ice cream and crying because she missed him so much. His heart breaks a little, but he makes a mental note to thank Rosa for taking care of her despite her policy regarding the discussion of feelings.

 

“Never again,” Jake mumbles against her hair sometime after midnight. “I’m never gonna leave you again.”

 

In the moment, he really believes it’s true.


	3. part three: prison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rewatched crime & punishment, the big house pt 1 and the big house pt 2 for this chapter and it was a very emotional time for me and i ended up eating a lot of gelato and immediately watching jake & amy to recover (which may or may not be necessary after reading this)

Amy is falling apart.

 

It’s after the jury says “guilty”, the judge gives two of her favourite people on the planet each a sentence of fifteen years in prison, and the court is adjourned.

 

It’s after two officers handcuff Jake and Rosa, respectively, and she’s overwhelmed by how wrong it feels to see them on this side of the law.

 

It’s after Amy makes desperate eye contact with him for only a split second and attempts to convey everything she can with such a look - predominantly _“I love you and I will bring you home” -_ but worries that her fear and pain are more evident.

 

It’s after Gina’s arms wrap around her and her cold fingers come up to stroke Amy’s hair and provide her with some semblance of comfort.

 

It’s after the squad, which is noticeably too small, convenes briefly in the hallway of the courthouse and they try to comfort each other while also making a plan, which they will begin to execute tomorrow, to bust Hawkins.

 

It’s after she receives offers from every one of her friends to take her for drinks or drive her home or, if going home might be too painful, to stay at one of their places.

 

It’s after she politely declines said offers and accepts one more hug from Charles, immediately afterwards retreating to her car in the parking lot.

 

It happens when she unlocks her little sedan and climbs into the driver’s seat. She turns the key in the ignition and the Enya CD automatically starts to play, but in stark contrast to their drive back from Pennsylvania only a few hours ago, there is no Jake sitting in the seat next to her and singing along or squeezing her thigh periodically while she drives.

 

Right away, she ejects the CD and chucks it haphazardly into the back seat, leaving her in complete silence.

 

 _That_ is when breaks, because life with Jake is never this quiet, but life without him - a life she knows all too well from his time in witness protection - is painfully so. Her heart feels like it’s shattering inside her chest, making her entire body physically ache, and she releases the pain with a strangled sob.

 

Her forehead comes to rest against the steering wheel as tears stream down her face and cloud her vision. Her ears are still ringing with the “guilty” verdict, her brain is still replaying the image of him being dragged away from her.

 

She doesn’t pull herself together until the sun begins to set over the courthouse parking lot. Her phone buzzes incessantly, to the point that she can no longer ignore it, and she picks it up without checking the name on the screen.

 

“Hello?” Her voice is weak and a little hoarse - it’s the first word she’s spoken in almost an hour.

 

“Amy, how was the trial?”

 

Her dad’s firm, formal tone shrouds most of the fear in his voice. He’s been a rock for them the past few months, offering to help pay for legal fees or come to New York and assist her in digging for evidence to indict Hawkins.

 

She opens her mouth to answer and no words come out, no sound other than a quiet whimper, the aftershock of the wails that just wracked her body.

 

“Oh, no, honey. They didn’t…”

 

She hadn’t been sure until now - until this horrible, awful circumstance - if her father even _liked_ Jake. Now, with the slight trembling in his usually steady voice, she thinks he’s begun to see him more like an eighth son than his daughter’s boyfriend.

 

“Guilty on all charges,” she chokes out. “Jake _and_ Rosa. They both got-they got fifteen years.“

 

“You’ll get them out, mija, I know you will,” Victor cuts in firmly. “You have a strong detective squad, your captain is brilliant-”

 

“What if we can’t, Dad?”

 

There’s a brief silence. If he were here, she’s sure she would see the typical pensive, thoughtful look on her father’s face as he tries to formulate the best possible response to ease his daughter’s worries. He’s always, always known the right thing to say for every situation life has thrown at her.

 

This isn’t a B on a math test or a mean girl who didn’t invite Amy to her birthday party, though.

 

“We’ll figure something out, Amy,” he responds with vague uncertainty. “Do you want your mother and I to come stay with you for a while?”

 

“I-I don’t know. No. I think I need to be alone and…and try to process this.”

 

“Okay, sweetheart. Whatever you need.” Another long pause. “Everything is going to be okay.”

 

“I hope so.”

 

She drives home, climbs into his side of the bed, and cries until it’s no longer physically possible.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Around half past four in the morning, Amy wakes with sweat on her forehead and bits and pieces of the dream she’s experienced every time she closes her eyes tonight still fresh in her memory.

 

The dreams have varied slightly, but all of them start with her in Jake’s arms, in the bed that is currently half-empty, and subsequently end with him being dragged out of a courtroom.

 

Needless to say, going back to sleep is not an option - she isn’t sure if her heart can take seeing his desperate eyes and shaky hands another time. Instead of closing her eyes and attempting to get more than one or two hours of rest before work, she accepts defeat.

 

The apartment is cold, too cold for summer, and it doesn’t help that her primary heat source is hundreds of miles away. That doesn’t help _anything,_ actually - all it does is make her want to scream about the injustice of the state of New York and America and, really, the universe.

 

(She’s a good person. Good people don’t deserve to watch their boyfriend go to prison for a crime they didn’t commit.)

 

She proceeds with her morning routine hours ahead of schedule, filling out the crossword and drinking her coffee. She grabs a pantsuit from her side of the closet and tries not to look at the half occupied with plaid shirts and hoodies.

 

By six-thirty, she’s parked her car in front of the precinct. She recognizes that in order to maintain her regular workload and work on the case, there is no time to be wasted.

 

She’s engrossed in a witness report from one of the first robberies, her nose buried in one of the many files on her desk, when her ears faintly register footsteps and a concerned voice calling out her name.

 

Still, she doesn’t look up from the file - _no time to be wasted_.

 

“Santiago,” the voice says again, closer this time, followed by a much softer: “ _Amy_.”

 

Only when she strays far enough from her train of thought to register who is speaking to her does she look up from her desk, a quick glance to acknowledge Captain Holt’s presence before resuming her careful perusing.

 

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” Holt says.

 

“Why not?” she asks without looking up.

 

“I can imagine this must be very difficult for you. Jake being convicted.” He adds the last part like she doesn’t know, like she hasn’t spent the past sixteen hours hearing the word _guilty_ echo in her brain like a gunshot. “I thought it went without saying, but you are welcome to take a few days off is you need time to process this.”

 

“I can’t.”

 

“I’m sure your colleagues will be more than willing to cover your cases-“

 

“No.” She cuts him off with firmness that surprises both of them, shaking her head. “I can’t just sit at home while Jake is alone and probably terrified and in danger in a goddamn cell in the middle of nowhere. I have to find a way to get him and Rosa out. I _need_ to be working.”

 

She braces herself for the speech - the reprimanding that will almost certainly end in her going home and realizing the error in her approach - but, even if the captain has crafted such a message in his mind, it never comes. He simply nods and takes a step back.

 

“Okay,” he speaks quietly, voice lacking its usual authoritative quality. “Just please let me know if you need anything.”

 

She barely manages to rasp a “thank you” before he’s in his office and closing the door behind him, his desk already covered in a similar array of papers and - maybe, _hopefully -_ some sort of clue that will lead them to Hawkins’ arrest.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The first day she visits him, with Captain Holt and Charles in company, she’s left feeling much worse than before.

 

She’s able to hold it together during the visit, with Jake’s eyes so intently watching her every move. His analytical gaze hardly leaves her face for the entirety of the hour, and she _knows_ that he can see the dark circles she tried her best to cover up with concealer in the airport bathroom and the smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She wishes he didn’t know her so well, or that he wasn’t such an observant person - maybe then she could fool him into thinking she’s okay.

 

She listens to him talk about the crappy food in the dining hall, his quirky cellmate, and the general gist of life as an inmate. She laughs when he makes a joke and smiles when he smiles at her. She tries to ignore the pit in her stomach.

 

Finally, she hugs him goodbye; his stubbly face brushes against hers and she can feel the loss of weight when her hand curls around his back, and she’s overwhelmed by the ways prison has already changed him physically. When she thinks about the mental and emotional toll it’s inevitably going to take, she begins to feel a little bit nauseous.

 

The nausea takes hold and refuses to relent when they step out of the visiting room and she hears an announcement over the P.A. that an inmate has just been stabbed in the cafeteria. She knows it’s not him - he was in her arms less than two minutes ago, there’s no way he got there that quickly - but it _could_ be him tomorrow, or the next day, or any minute of any day until she gets him out of here.

 

Amy is strong, so she shakes her head when Holt asks if she needs a moment before starting their rental car and heading back to the airport to catch their flight (back to New York, back to being thousands of miles from the other half of her heart).

 

Amy _is_ strong, but her stomach is decidedly not - they only make it twenty minutes down the empty South Carolina backroads before she’s blurting out a request for Holt to pull over and Charles is holding her hair back while she throws up.

 

The rest of the trip home - the drive, the flight, the taxi back to the precinct - is completely silent.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The collective concern for Amy among the Nine-Nine grows substantially after the South Carolina incident.

 

Gina, now on maternity leave and only weeks away from giving birth, invites her over to gossip about the other women in her prenatal class, drink tea and watch TLC shows.

 

Charles makes her dinner at least a few times a week after realizing how little she’s been eating at work. Nothing too weird, either - mostly pasta, casseroles, the sort of food he thinks she’s most likely to actually eat.

 

Holt extends an open invitation to dinner with him and Kevin, which she accepts one night when her apartment is feeling even more eerily empty than usual. Kevin tries to crack jokes about that morning’s _New York Times_ crossword puzzle, and she tries to let herself laugh and enjoy that this would be her dream dinner under normal circumstances.

 

Terry comes over one Saturday morning with Ava while Sharon is at a birthday party with the twins, and Amy does feel a small resurgence of warmth in her chest while playing with Jake’s two year-old goddaughter.

 

While she’s incredibly grateful for her friends and their support, it doesn’t really fill the void that is drinking tequila on the couch with Rosa (the very thing that got her through much of Jake’s time in WITSEC) or making out with Jake in their kitchen on a lazy Sunday afternoon. There is no substitute for Rosa Diaz or Jake Peralta (the latter she learned the hard way years ago while trying to convince herself she could be happy with other men).

 

She only cries at work once. She’s been at the precinct for twelve hours, working tirelessly on a lead concerning one of Hawkins’ subordinates that ultimately led to another in a long string of dead ends. The moment she realizes she’s made zero progress in nearly five weeks - _five weeks_ of Jake sitting in prison - she feels the floodgates open, her feet carrying her to the evidence lockup as quickly as possible as to not break down in front of the entire bullpen.

 

It’s no surprise, really, that a paIr of footsteps follow her and strong arms wrap around her before the first sob is released.

 

“It’s okay, Amy, you can let it out,” Terry says softly, patting her back.

 

“I can’t keep letting him down,” she whimpers. “I need to find something.”

 

It’s a thought she’s entertained a few too many times - that if she or someone else had been incarcerated in his place, _Jake_ surely would’ve figured out a way to get them out by now. Jake, the brilliant detective, dedicated friend and perfect boyfriend. God, he _always_ figures it out.

 

“You aren’t letting him down, you’re doing the best that you can,” he assures her. “And it’s not just your burden, okay? We’re all with you. We’re gonna get them out, _together_.”

 

She nods against Terry’s chest as the tears staining his white shirt continue to flow freely.

 

“I miss him so much.”

 

“I know, Amy. I know.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It’s a Tuesday afternoon when she gets a phone call from an unknown number, and her heart nearly stops for a variety of reasons, the most worrisome being the fact that she’s Jake’s emergency contact in prison -the first person to be called if he’s injured or, god forbid, worse.

 

“Hello, this is Amy Santiago.” She tries to keep her voice firm and steady.

 

“Ames, it’s me.”

 

The phone almost slips out of her fingers as soon as she hears the familiar voice.

 

“Jake? How are - you got the contraband phone?”

 

“Yep,” Jake replies cheerfully on the other end. “All it took was giving a murderer some ramen.”

 

He sounds happy - happy for someone in his situation, anyways - and despite the way her throat tightens at the thought of him colluding with convicted murderers, she tries to be a little bit happy, too.

 

“I’m glad you managed to get one, babe,” she says softly, leaning forward in her desk chair. “Especially after our last visit was cut short.”

 

He sighs happily, and she can almost see the content, dreamy look on his face that often accompanies such a sigh buried deep in her memory.

 

“I can’t believe I’m hearing your voice.”

 

“I know.” She clutches the phone a little tighter, trying to memorize the sound of his breathing. “It’s so amazing.”

 

“And now every day can be like visiting day, and we can talk about whatever, whenever-“

 

He’s cut off abruptly, and Amy tenses as she hears the faint sound of another man’s voice in the background.

 

“I gotta go.”

 

“Jake?”

 

The line goes dead before she can receive a response or ascertain for herself what kind of situation had arisen that required him to hang up so quickly.

 

She doesn’t get much time to dwell on it; a brief moment later, Terry is calling her over to look at something in one of the robbery files.

 

 _They’re getting closer_ , she thinks. _She’s going to get him out._

 

 

* * *

 

 

The spark of hope in the form of an address for a bus station is quickly extinguished. On the drive home from Linden, New Jersey, Amy feels her optimism deteriorate more with every mile. Hawkins was one step ahead of them.

 

Hawkins is _always_ one step ahead of them. Maybe she always will be.

 

She’s trying to find some other solution, some desperate Hail Mary to save them, but not even the deepest corners of her mind can come up with any route they haven’t already explored.

 

Once Captain Holt comes out of his office rambling about finishing pigs, everything is shoved into hyper speed: running to change into tactical gear; storming the Slaughterhouse and the sweet vindication of Melanie Hawkins’ face as she realizes she’s lost; reluctantly complying with Holt’s orders to assist Terry in arresting the remainder of Hawkins’ men up in Queens, letting Charles and Holt go to retrieve Jake and Rosa, respectively; _finally_ seeing every one of the people responsible for making her and her loved ones’ lives a living hell for months behind bars; scrambling to finish arrest reports without even double-checking for grammatical errors because _she needs to get to the airport._

 

She doesn’t even have time to process what’s happening until she’s standing at the arrivals gate, her eyes glued to the _TBD_ next to _Charleston_ , wringing her hands together as she awaits for the _ARRIVED_ to appear in big, green letters.

 

 _He’s coming home_. After the two most gruelling and emotionally exhausting months of her life, she will finally get to hold him with no guards yelling that their time is up and kiss him until her heart pieces itself back together.

 

_He’s coming home, he’s coming home, he’s coming home._

 

She repeats it like a mantra in her head to keep herself grounded to reality, so preoccupied with reminding herself she isn’t dreaming that she doesn’t notice as the sign changes - the plane landed six minutes early - and is completely unprepared and lost in her own thoughts when she hears Charles’ voice cut through the noisy room.

 

“Amy!”

 

The scene that follows is almost too cinematic to be real. The crowd seems to part serendipitously, their eyes meet at exactly the same time, the bag Jake is carrying is abandoned on the ground at Boyle’s feet as he sprints towards her. She’s too shellshocked by the perfection of it all that she only makes it a few feet before he reaches her.

 

His momentum nearly knocks her off her feet, but he scoops her up in his arms and spins her around - a full three-sixty - with ease, her joyous laughter ringing out through the swarm of New Yorkers reuniting with loved ones (most of them in less dramatic manner) and going utterly unnoticed by anyone other than them (and Charles, obviously).

 

He doesn’t set her down for a few seconds, her arms winding around his neck while she burrows her face past his hoodie and her lips connect with his collarbone.

 

“Oh my god, _Ames_ ,” he sighs, pulling away to look at her with hands firmly gripping her upper arms, “I can’t believe this is happening. This is _real_.”

 

She doesn’t completely register that she’s crying until she’s nodding rapidly and the tears fall from her eyes. A bright smile forms on her face, not unlike the awestruck grin on his.

 

“It’s real, babe.”

 

She isn’t sure she believes it until she says it herself: Jake is wearing a t-shirt, hoodie and leather jacket instead of an orange jumpsuit; he smells like _his_ cologne and not the cheap prison soap; his face is completely shaven, no trace of the beard remaining. He _looks_ like a dream.

 

“You got rid of the beard,” she murmurs, her thumbs brushing over his cheeks.

 

“With a crappy razor in a gas station bathroom, but I wanted to get rid of all evidence of prison by the time I got home. I had Charles bring me a bag of my stuff.” She manages a smile despite the ache in her chest, a small voice telling her that the ramifications of this traumatic time will not be fixed with cologne and a gas station razor. “Do you miss it?”

 

“Nope,” she says without thought. Then, a little quieter: “I missed _you_.”

 

“Same here, babe. You have no idea how much.”

 

She raises herself onto the tips of her toes to pull him in for a long, searing kiss. Her hand strokes his hair, slightly longer than the last time she ran her fingers through it. Other than that tiny, minuscule change, it feels strikingly similar to every other kiss she’s shared with her boyfriend - beautiful, right, full of love.

 

“I love you,” she whispers after pulling away, pecking his lips softly.

 

“I love you t- _Boyle_ , c’mon man.”

 

She spins around to face their coworker, whose presence she had completely forgotten, where he stands only a few feet away from them, holding his phone up.

 

“Did you seriously _film_ all that?” Amy asks, laughing a little because she can’t bring herself to be annoyed right now, not when Jake is stroking the small of her back.

 

“Can you _blame_ me?” Charles exclaims, throwing his hands up defensively. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

 

She rolls her eyes, wiping a few stray tears away and leaning into Jake’s side for support. She can’t really disagree with him.

 

“Believe it or not, mine and Charles’ reunion was actually much more emotional,” Jake states, tilting his head down so that his nose barely brushes her temple and he can see her laugh.

 

“Oh, I believe it.” She takes his hand and slides her fingers into the spaces between his. “We should get going. I told the squad we’ll be at Shaw’s in half an hour and it’s gonna be a nightmare getting out of here.”

 

Jake sighs happily, squeezing her hand as he retrieves his bag from the floor.

 

“Is it weird that I actually missed New York traffic?”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Amy’s never been completely certain what her favourite place on Earth is.

 

Before today, she could’ve made an argument for a few different spots: the small reading nook in her apartment, the fireplace at her parents’ house in New Jersey, the main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue.

 

Now, as she’s nestled into a booth with Jake and Rosa on either side of her, Jake’s arm around her and his chest vibrating as he laughs at a story Charles is telling, she is certain there’s no competition.

 

As glorious as the sounds of her reunited squad’s laughter and as warm as the look on Jake’s face is making her insides, there are certain things that cannot be done or said until they are alone. With every kiss he presses to her cheek and every stroke of her hand on his thigh, she longs for the privacy of their apartment.

 

“Let’s go home,” she murmurs in his ear after an hour or so.

 

He doesn’t argue or even hesitate, he just nods, presses a subtle kiss to her head and begins saying goodbye to each member of the squad.

 

As she watches him hug Charles, who is reluctant to let go, shake hands with Captain Holt and Terry, squeeze Rosa’s shoulder and stop to smile brightly at Hitchcock and Scully, she feels the tectonic plates of her world begin to shift back together. It isn’t exactly normal, but it’s on its way to being something resembling normal. Maybe something better, some time in the future.

 

He wraps his arm around her waist, his fingers grazing the material of her soft, pink sweater as he thanks everyone one more time and says he’ll see them at work on Monday, which is the most delightfully mundane statement Amy’s ever heard.

 

Their limbs tangle in the back of the cab; her leg is crossed and draped over his and his arm is hung around her shoulders. It’s intimate yet casual until his hand reaches down to rest on her thigh, starting close to her knee and inching upwards. It’s warm and comforting at first, but his touch ignites her body with ease after two months without this kind of intimacy.

 

She glances up at him to find his eyes already on her, dark and focused. He knows exactly what he’s doing to her, and it’s fully intentional.

 

It’s not an easy feat, but she restrains from kissing him until she unlocks their front door - she isn’t sure if she’ll be able to stop kissing him once she begins - and he has a moment to take in their apartment for the first time in way too long.

 

The apartment is dark, lit only by the small light above the stove and the glow of the city through the window, and neither of them move to turn on the lights. Instead, they move towards each other like magnets, her hands cupping his face and his tugging at her waist as their lips meet.

 

All of the tenderness of the kisses they shared at the bar is gone as they relish in finally, _finally_ being alone in a room together. It’s been months since she’s kissed him this deeply. She’s missed the ability to prove her love for him through her actions rather than just telling him repeatedly through the speaker of a cheap prison phone.

 

She doesn’t realize she’s been gently pushing him forward, unknowingly moving through the apartment, until the backs of his legs connect with the couch and he’s pulling her down next to him. Never breaking the kiss, Amy shoves the leather jacket and hoodie off of him all at once and lets them fall to the floor, her hands immediately flying to run up and down his newly-exposed biceps.

 

Still feeling far too separate from him, Amy swings her leg over to straddle his waist and slowly thrusts against him while simultaneously deepening the kiss, a move which earns her a low moan from Jake’s lips. He tugs off her sweater and the tank top underneath in one swift movement, discarding them in the pile of his already-removed garments. Warm hands sweep over her back and pull her closer.

 

“I missed you so much,” Amy mutters frantically when she takes a second to pull away for air.

 

“You have no idea, Santiago,” Jake groans, his eyes trailing her lacy black bra that she definitely wore on purpose for his homecoming while his hands unbutton her jeans and stroke the sides of her matching underwear.

 

Amy kisses him again and pulls at the bottom of his t-shirt until he frees his arms to assist her in tugging it over his head. Her fingers drift downward, grazing his ribs, and quickly pull away as soon as she feels him tense below her.

 

“Sorry, babe, are my hands too cold-“

 

She glances down, her eyes widening as she takes in the array of faded bruises and scars covering much of her boyfriend’s torso.

 

“Jake...” she whispers, her hand covering her mouth as she takes in every inch of discolouration on his ribs, abdomen, back and shoulders.

 

“I’m okay!” he cuts in quickly, glancing down in surprise as if he’s seeing this for the first time, too. “It’s really not that bad, Ames. Trust me, it looks a lot worse than it is.”

 

She shakes her head, blinking back the tears that have already formed. “What happened? Was this that Romero guy? You promised me you didn’t do anything dangerous to get the phone-“

 

“No, babe, it wasn’t him,” Jake assures her, gently guiding her waist so that she’s sitting next to him, her legs still draped over his lap. “He asked me to kill a guard, so I decided to let the guard beat me up on camera to try to get him fired instead. It was weeks ago, I’ve mostly healed, I _swear_.”

 

Amy nods, biting her lip to stifle a sob and reaching out to grab one of his hands between both of hers.

 

“So you were safe after that, right? Nobody else touched you?”

 

“Yeah. I mean, things got kinda complicated, in a weird turn of events my cannibal cell mate ended up getting stabbed for me, but-“ Jake stops as he sees her eyes widen with fear once more. “I was mostly safe. Don’t worry. I’m fine now, really.”

 

She can hardly process the idea of him locked up with murderers and cannibals, her boyfriend with a heart of gold surrounded by so much evil makes her feel queasy, but she tries to suppress her emotions for his benefit. He’s just been through hell, he doesn’t need to see the pain she’s endured through this experience just yet.

 

“I’m going to speak to Captain Holt in the morning and file an official complaint against that guard and the prison,” Amy says with a slightly clearer voice, squeezing his hand a bit tighter.

 

For a moment, Jake looks like he’s going to tell her to let it be and leave this all in the past, but he just nods and pulls his hand away to wrap his arm around her shoulders and bring her closer.

 

“Let’s not talk about it any more tonight, okay?”

 

She buries her face in his neck, fully aware that he can feel the tears leaking onto his skin, and nods slowly.

 

“You’re home,” she murmurs, her hand rubbing small circles on his thigh. “You’re really here.”

 

“I’m here.” His lips press a kiss, long and warm, against her forehead. “I love you.”

 

“I love you.”

 

His lips move back to hers and his hands back to her jeans, pulling them down to her ankles while they kiss as fervently as before.

 

“We should-”

 

“Yep,” Jake says against her lips before she can finish. His hands swoop down to lift her up and she curls her legs around his waist in response, continuing to distract him with her tongue as he slowly walks them towards their bedroom.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The birds aren’t yet chirping and the sky is still dark, but it’s indisputably morning by the time Jake pulls out of her and presses one long, lingering kiss on her lips before flopping down on his side of the bed.

 

They made love slowly and softly, neither in a hurry for it to be over, holding on as long as possible to keep it from ending. In one word, it was incredible.

 

(If more words were to be used, Amy would describe it as more passionate and loving and emotional than she knew it could be, even with the man she knows to be the love of her life.)

 

“Have I told you how much I love you?” Amy asks as she curls into his side and places her head on his chest, dropping a few light kisses before settling in comfortably.

 

“A few times in the past hour. But you should probably say it again for good measure.”

 

She does, and she kisses his knuckles, which are intertwined with hers, after each syllable.

 

“I love you too, honey.” It’s a new term of endearment from him, and it warms her heart almost as much as the words that precede it. “ _So_ much.”

 

“Life really sucks without you,” she says, absentmindedly playing with his fingers.

 

“Agreed. Let’s never do it again.”

 

It’s not a proposal, but her detective brain takes note of the glint in his eye and the way he’s noticeably staring down at her left hand. She certainly doesn’t need a diamond ring or a white dress or any legal confirmation of their love to be happy, but she really wouldn’t be surprised if those things are a part of her near future.

 

Regardless of whether they exchange proper vows some time six months or a year or ten years from now, there isn’t a shadow of doubt in her mind that she’ll love this man for the rest of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> peraltasames on tumblr loves xxxxx kudos and comments are much appreciated


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